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Overall I am very pleased with my big Ford truck, but I do not like the 6.0L that is in it. It is and will forever be a high maintenance motor because of it’s design. It is not a 12V Cummins that can be ignored and abused and still come back for more, you MUST change the filter by 5,000 miles or you will start replacing injectors. The nature of putting oil under the high pressure that is needed to run the injectors leads to it being rapidly braking down. The oil cooler is the weak point in the motor, and if everything is otherwise running correctly, replace it(unless it has been done recently) and install a coolant filter, then follow a maintenance schedule religiously. Otherwise, it really does roll like that old Cadillac and pulls anything you could wish. The 5r110 transmission is on par with the Allison and the fit and finish is on par with any German car I’ve ever owned. The king ranch interior is high maintenance also, but the richness of the materials is above and beyond any luxury car I’ve ever been in. I took a chance and because it had the “dreaded” 6.0L motor, I was able to walk away with a screaming deal.

I think the “Truth Verification Test” might refer to the voice stress analysis test (VSA or CVSA), which actually is (somewhat) different from the traditional polygraph test.
However, Jack was still right (and in more than one way) when he said the danger is about the psychology behind it… it’s not just the language element at work, but with the psychology behind the polygraph test itself. The whole polygraph process is somewhat dehumanizing and is essentially boils down to a psychological mind-game, with the polygraph test being more a psychological prop to be wielded by the polygrapher (and influenced by his/her motives and biases) than the impartial truth or lie detector it is presented to be. Despite getting that job that required the polygraph, if I knew what I know now I would have refused the job. I have not taken the CVSA, but based on what I know about it I suspect it is used much the same way and its accuracy is probably just as questionable (since like the polygraph it only measures stress but not the reason BEHIND the stress). And while it is different from the traditional polygraph, like Jack and the caller I also suspect the name “Truth Verification Test” was chosen very carefully and deliberately, in the hope that they can get this approved for use in courts where the polygraph generally isn’t. I hope they fail, because in corrupt hands or a police state this will ruin countless lives.

I always thought East Germany looked like Orwell wrote… Everything was gray because of the pollution from the 2 cycle cars, people wore drab colors and the only clean buildings were communist monuments. LOL My first night there I made the mistake of sleeping with the window open. The next morning I woke up with a sore throat and swollen glands… The people I was staying with told me “You shouldn’t open the window at night. That’s when they pump all the chemicals into the air from the factories…”
East Germany just looked like the stereotypical totalitarian communist country… (This was in the eighties, before reunification…)

To the guy that called in about nursing care. I live in the Salem area in Oregon. My mother has been a nurse in various assisted living homes for my entire life. I pretty much grew up in one. The key is to tour the facility. Take note on how clean it is. Depending on the type of facility it is, just walk in and take a look, a manager taking you on a tour will show you only the nice things. If available eat in the general dining room, see how good the food is. I will give my mother a call tonight and see if I cant get the names of a couple really bad places to avoid in the Portland area, and get the names of a couple really good ones too.
If you have any other questions give me a shout, I might be able to give some good insight.

Great point on EATING there. Should have mentioned that and it was one of the things that made us pick the place we did for Dorothy’s dad. Their food was restaurant quality, not some 5 Michelin Star or something but better than say Luby’s Diner. I am a person that hates all “institutional food” like schools, etc. But I never minded eating at that place, it was all great. Just had to bring your own butter, they had that promise garbage and everything needed salt they kept the salt really low for obvious reasons.

Ya the food is key, if they are cutting food to save costs, what else are they cutting? Most likely cleaning. If your paying 4-14K per month, they should be able to buy real cheese and non powdered eggs.

Update: Checked with my mother she could not recall the name of the really bad assisted living facility in Portland. She thinks it actually went bankrupt after being sued so many times.
Once you have a family member in one of these places, check on them fairly randomly. If you are showing up every Saturday, they will be sure to have everything looking nice by Friday night. Don’t Tell them when you are coming next. Drop by different times of the day, evening, and night.
Verify medication is actually being given, and not forgotten or stolen. Check your loved ones feet, I had a family member where the facility was not bathing her properly and her feet were turned black from the dirt. Check the bedding for being clean, as well as their clothing. Know where valuables are and note if anything goes missing, it might not be staff, but your loved one may have given them away not remembering.

Agree big time on the drop in at random times suggestion, especially at NIGHT. Usually the B team is working at night we got two people fired for basically fucking off while people laid in their own waste, because the facility really cares and wants shitty workers gone fast.

That’s fucked up. It’s a story iv heard many times. You just never really know how your loved one will be treated.
It might even be worth installing hidden cameras in the room, especially for if your loved one has severe dementia. This way you can see that they are getting food, medications, changed, bathed, room cleaned, and not stolen from.

Great news! Cloth diapers today are a ton more convenient than they were a generation – or even 10, 12 years ago. There’s no rubber pants, no safety pins, and (in my experience) less leaks than disposable. Modern cloth diapers have features like absorbent inserts, adjustable snaps closures and built-in waterproofing, etc.- that make them quite easy to machine wash and honestly damn near as convenient as disposables. I cloth diapered my son, it was no big deal, and I saved easily a $1000 dollars over the time he was in dipes with that one choice. So definitely something I would encourage soon-to-be-parents, or people prepping for infants and toddlers to not be grossed out by.

John – there’s lots of brands and lots of styles out there. If you do a search for “cloth diapers” on Amazon many options will come up. I used this brand with my son because they were a good value, are made in the “pocket diaper” style, which is the most convenient style in my opinion, adjusted from infant to big toddler size, and were made in the USA. I was very happy with them. If you’re just thinking of putting a stack of cloth diapers away for a theoretical SHTF scenario, cheap trifold diapers and pins might be fine, but if you’re looking for something for your own child I definitely recommend one of the modern adjustable diapers. Hope this helps.

I used cloth daipers with all three of my kids. My oldest got Gerber prefold diapers with good covers (fleece or wool) and a “Snappi” to fasten them. I never used pins.

I was given fancier diapers with my boys, and I still have them stowed away in a box somewhere even though my youngest is 9.

Along those lines, I also snagged all the flannel baby blankets I could, and they’re stowed in a box in case I need to cut them up for TP or something else. It’s not that big a deal to keep one container of receiving blankets. They don’t take up much space. I figured though that since cloth diapers weren’t a big deal, cloth TP wouldn’t be either in a pinch.

Jack- Listening to this episode now. I wanted to add some feedback on the postal service comments. I worked for a common carrier (briefly) that had a contract with the postal service to deliver PALLETS of packages to individual post offices. I was contracted to do this and I vetted but there was practically no over sight to ensure I was not stealing any of these packages. The pallets would be loaded on my truck and I would run them to each post office they were packed for. Some PO would get multiple pallets, especially the larger POs. Most of these packages were from online sites sending the orders to the persons, but some were smaller letter sized envelopes. I could have easily seen something that looked good and just pulled it off the pallet and have it “get lost in mail”. Not in my nature to steal, obviously, or I would not be putting this down for the world to see, but I am sure the possibility certainly exists for some who may not be as honest as myself to do just this. Just putting this out there for the community to be aware of. The PO certainly does not have the ability to handle all of the mail that they deliver any more and have to rely on 3rd party haulers to get the mail from one place to another. At least someone in the PO has the sense to know they have to sub some of the work to save on costs, but then have to rely on the honesty of those doing the work for them, just as you say, not everyone in the PO itself is all that honest. BTW- my dad was a 20 year letter carrier and told several tales of employees getting canned and prosecuted for stealing mail. By PO regulations, employees that possess even undeliverable items like junk mail, magazines and ad mail because a resident moves and leaves no forwarding address, can be prosecuted for stealing mail.

Feeling old when you referred to “distance learning” with the correspondence courses. My 2nd degree was via “2001-2003 distance” where we dialed into a videoconference at 5PM eastern with a 2PM Pacific real class. I also did some correspondence work in the Navy. My MBA though… just like modern work: video conferences with presentation reviews/changes/etc. prior to submission, emailing drafts of papers, online research for reference material, class/group mates from 6 different timezones. Distance learning today is just like distance life… the internet has made education just like the real world if you choose to take that path. If you’d rather go blow the money on booze and girls, more power to you and enjoy the fruits of your pet loan FIdo. But you don’t have to do that to yourself anymore.

Tie the available formal “distance education” in with things like Khan Academy, free courses from universities, and independent learning opportunities like Greg Cecil talked about in Ep 1992 and you have yourself an education unrivaled by any classroom. Go buy a Fido with teeth and a tail instead of one from Sallie Mae.

Glad you’ve had good luck with your 6.0L Ford diesel but there is a reason they’re known as a 6 Oh No and it’s not because everyone was chipping them. As John mentioned, their injector system is one of the weakest links. My dad had an ’05, bone stock 6.0L, and it ended up in the shop at 75,000 miles due to a cooling system problem.

I’m still driving my ’05 5.9L Cummins……265,000+ miles with no engine work. Hope you have as good of luck with your Ford as I’ve had with my Dodge.

We have three kids four a d under and we have done a mix of cloth and regular diapering.

Modern cloth diapers are nothing like the diapers of the 50s. The bun genius ones are pretty great. We use them until the kid switches to solids and then go disposable (the poop changes considerably at that point). If you want to stick with cloth you should get the liners that are similar in consistency to a dryer sheet. Makes changing them far easier.